Thoughts of a Vampire
by cutepony
Summary: Angel thinks over his purpose in life and why he and his friends continue trying to save the world. Oneshot


Disclaimer: The same deal goes with this as with my other story, unfortunately I do not own Angel or any of Joss Whedon's other fantastic creations. This is just a Oneshot to see if an idea of mine could work out.

Angel sat at the window of his office looking out over the city of LA. He'd made a promise to himself shortly after moving here from Sunnydale that he would protect the city and the people in it. No matter how long it took him, he would make up for all the pain he had caused back when he'd been the terror of Europe.

In a way, Angel had made peace with the world, he'd saved it from countless apocalypses, raiding demons and many other imminent problems. But no matter how many lives he had saved, Angel still didn't forgive himself for causing so many people so much pain. If it weren't for him then Spike would have lived out a normal life, forever wanting to be loved by a girl who he knew deep down would never love him and forever bearing the nickname of William the Bloody. He would have continued to write bad poetry, to attend parties and formal gatherings where he would long for acceptance but gain only the mocking laughter of the other guests.

Had it not been for him then Drusilla would have remained alive and happy, surrounded by her family. She wouldn't have become the crazed, tortured vampire that he'd made her.

There had been others like them, many others but Spike and Dru had stayed with him, even after his soul had been returned, Spike had returned to haunt him, an ever present reminder of his past, of Angelus.

Since a gypsy curse had restored his soul, returning it to him, he had tried to make up for his actions but nothing seemed to help, his past was always there, haunting him, a moment of pure happiness away.

It wasn't like he didn't have help in keeping LA safe, there was Cordelia, Wesley, Fred, Lorne and Gunn, and they were always there to help him. But he knew that it couldn't always be that way. When he'd first started out in Los Angeles there had been a half demon who had helped him find his calling in the big city, Doyle. Part bracken demon, part human, he'd had visions which had led him to Angel and after that helped Angel. But then Doyle had died, the memory was still painful, Cordelia and Angel were on the same level in this case, each missed Doyle as much as the other.

Before he'd died Doyle had passed his 'gift' of visions on to Cordelia, this was all fine and dandy for him but Angel hated that every time Cordelia had a vision it caused her mild to extreme pain. True, the visions did help a lot but was it really worth it? This topic was one that was still highly debatable.

Angel knew that eventually the world would have to change or end or both, whether it ended by the sun exploding or the demons finally won through and took control, life here couldn't always stay the same. Of course he also knew that until then, he was stuck as a vampire, he could well be stuck as a vampire forever unless someone staked or beheaded him, or he stood in the sunlight.

His business wasn't a pretty one, being a vampire and technically one of the undead, he was isolated from society, but the fact that he had a soul isolated him from other vampires. That he killed other vampires as easily as he'd once killed humans just angered them. When he thought about it, the simplest way to put it was that he was a misfit, fitting into both categories, human and vampire, and yet at the same time out of place in both. He was immortal still as all vampires were but he had a conscience, a soul, like his mortal charges, the difference was that it could be a very long time before he passed from the world forever.

His companions however, would not last as long as he did, Angel was aware that someday, just like Doyle, his other friends would die also. Whether they would die of old

age, disease or were killed in battle no one knew, but they did know that eventually they would die.

Until then he knew that they would strive on to keep their world safe from the growing threat of evil. And for what? What was the use of it when nobody knew, nobody cared, most of the population of earth were unaware that they were in any danger. They didn't know that almost every week there was most likely an apocalypse in the making so how could they know that they'd been saved from one? Let alone by whom. When people saw Wesley they saw him as a part of the normal population of LA not someone with extensive knowledge of demons from now and ages past, the same went for Cordy, Gunn and Fred. On the rare occasions that people saw Lorne they weren't scared, but they would have been if they knew that he really was a demon and not just a person dressed up in a demon suit.

This didn't seem right, that the people who were out there risking their lives to save the world from frequent demon invasions, vampire attacks and apocalypses were the ones who went unnoticed. Personally he didn't really care if anyone noticed him or not, he actually preferred his undead life as it was. But his friends definitely deserved some recognition for their efforts.

Back when he'd had Angel Investigations at least their clients had said a polite "Thank you" before waltzing out the door, free of their other worldly troubles. Now, at Wolfram and Hart, most of their clients came and went from their lives with barely a hello other than to tell him or one of his friends their sad little story and have their problems fixed, then they were gone.

That was only if the troubles came from clients showing up to dump their troubles so that others could fix them. Sometimes their work came simply from reports of strange happenings and the like; in this case they were definitely the unsung hero's of those triumphs.

For himself Angel wanted no glory, in his own eyes he deserved none, and in any case he didn't need it, but Wesley and the others, despite their own mortality, kept risking their lives. In Angel's eyes this was worth all the praise in the world.

A gentle knock at the door interrupted Angel's thoughts, turning in his seat Angel saw Wesley standing there with a grim look on his face. Angel knew why Wesley had come, it was almost sun set and that was when the demons and vampires began to wreak their havoc on the weak, the ones who couldn't defend themselves, the people who he, Angel, was striving to protect.

Wesley opened his mouth to say something but Angel got there first, "I know Wes, don't worry, everything that has a beginning must have an end, eventually there will be an end to this too."

Wesley nodded, accepting Angel's wise words, eventually one way or another all things had come to an end no matter what. That meant that someday Angel would finally be staked or allowed to pass on having fully paid for his crimes and someday the prophecies would come true and the final apocalypse would come and other events would lead off from that.

At the end of everything Angel and all of his friends knew that the story that the Earth belonged in would end and they would have their peace.


End file.
